Very succinctly and eloquently stated, Redkiwi. I will nominate someone outside of Jazz whom I have not seen mentioned: Aretha Franklin. Maybe she doesn't belong in this thread because I find her CD's to be sonically not the best and she has clearly lost a lot off her voice in recent years... but in her time, as a singer who could sing in any genre, hit all the notes and still carry the audience with her, there was no one better. She also has had one of the longest careers of any female singer which is some evidence that she belongs way up there. I would say that some of her greatest work is not all that well known, even though she has sold a ton of records. Some of those big sellers were unremarkable. I put her at the top of my list just below Ella Fitzgerald. I would say that in rating singers, a mixture of things count for me, Craig. Their technical and vocal ability for sure (my analytical side). The songs they choose to sing. Are the lyrics about something to which I can relate? Their ability to bring something new and original to an old song. Does this originality improve or freshen the song? Lastly, do the music and vocals excite or grab me? With no disrespect to anyone else's method of judgment, it takes several of these ingredients in various combination to get my musical attention.
